were set to 0.6 , correct identification occurred 89 percent of the time someone walked into a recognition zone. False positive rates, per the report, were just 0.017 percent.
The NPL said the true positive identification rate showed no statistically significant deviations across gender and ethnic lines. "This is a significant report for policing as it is the first time we have had independent scientific evidence to advise us on the accuracy and any demographic differences of our Facial Recognition Technology," said Lindsey Chiswick, the Metropolitan Police's Director of Intelligence.
"We know that at the setting we have been using it, the performance is the same across race and gender and the chance of a false match is just 1 in 6,000 people who pass the camera," Chiswick said, adding the study was large enough that demographic differences would have been seen. If tweaked a bit more, say by upping the threshold to 0.64, the report said there weren't any false positives, while at 0.62 only a single false positive occurred during testing. Put a bit more slack on the line by moving it to below 0.6 and the system starts to exhibit"a statistically significant imbalance between demographics with more Black subjects having a false positive than Asian or White subjects," the NPL said.
From memory, the problems were false positives and strong racial biases. Does 'ironed out' mean that, under the current government, these aren't considered problems?
Ffs. 1 in 6000 sounds appalling when you think they will be used to scan large crowds. Say a standard Saturday football game with 30k attendance means 5 poor sods will have plod all up in their misidentified face, and we all know how much fun that will be for them.
So if you're dead it won't recognise you? 😃